


Stay with us

by Iskanlofen



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova - Freeform, De-Aged Booker, Kid Fic, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iskanlofen/pseuds/Iskanlofen
Summary: Six months into his exile, the team finds Booker in Kozak's new lab. Only, he is six years old.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 178





	1. Booker

The last soldier fell backwards, a bullet cleanly lodged between his brows. Joe coughed for a painful second, waiting for the large gash on his throat to closed up. He nodded in reassurance to Nicky, reading in his lover's eyes the same concern and anxiousness as he knew his to hold. Against all security protocols, Nicky slammed the door open and rushed into the next room alone.

It only took a few seconds for Joe to be able to stand again. A few seconds where Nicky had not made a single noise. Alarms triggered in his head and he rushed over.  
"Nicky, is everything all right?" he croaked.  
"Joe, we have a problem." was Nicky's only answer.

"What the hell? Where is he?"  
A bloodied Qùynh strode hastily towards Joe and Nicky. She wore a sniper rifle on her back, but the knife in her hand had obviously seen more use that night. Joe sped up to put himself between Nicky and the furious Qùynh.

A ball of Vietnamese fury collided into him. She grabbed onto his tactical vest and brought him down to her height.  
"Where's Booker? Where is he, Yusuf?"

Andy was right over to break the fight. She put a hand on Qùynh's shoulder.  
"Calm down. We're not safe yet."  
"Indeed." Nicky intervened as he reached the group. "Let's head back to the van. We have him. And another can of worms too."

"What?" Qùynh's attention snapped at the Genoese, who was carrying a bundle in his arms. A bundle too small to be a fully grown man.  
"What's that?"

Nicky shuffled the covers away, revealing a small child. Bright, frightened chestnut eyes looked up at the four adults. Everyone stopped talking. There were no mistaking those eyes.

"It's Booker."

Qùynh was the first one to react.  
"What the heck Nicky? How's that Booker?"

"I don't know. Kozak did something to him. But it's him. He remembers things. Mostly about his childhood in the 1800s up until six years old. He has passing memories of us, but says they come from his dreams. I don't know what happened, but it's like he's… grown young again?"

Andy interrupted them before Qùynh could add anything. They fell into formation, heading towards the Nile and the van, protecting that small bundle in Nicky's arms.


	2. Qùynh

Qùynh looked at the small child tucked into her large bed. Huddled under a fluffy comforter, Booker looked back, big brown eyes following her every move intently. She pondered for a moment and went to grab another blanket from the drawer. Children were small so they got cold easier, right? 

Booker gave a small "oof" when a layer of green fleece was added onto the pile that already covered him.  
She nodded in satisfaction and made to leave the bedroom. As she turned around, her ears caught the tiniest sniff. She turned back, looked at Booker again. He looked back, his small fingers curled at the edge of the comforter. She noted the boy's tense jaw, the slight trembling of his lower lip, and the minute quickening of his breath that calmed immediately when she approached him again.

She went to add a nightcap.

It took two other blankets and a pair of socks before Qùynh realized Booker probably wasn't cold.  
"You want a story?"  
He gave her a small nod and relaxed immediately when she started to narrate. 

When she finished summarizing her latest read, The Prince and the Pauper, Booker was still watching her with those huge eyes. There wasn't a single trace of sleepiness on his increasingly tense features.  
She hummed. It couldn't be the dreams. She had been out of the water for an entire month already, and they had finally just met a few hours ago.

"Bathroom?"  
He nodded and relaxed once more.

Two glasses of milk, three trips to the bathroom, and four stories later, the weight of Booker's gaze was still preventing Qùynh from leaving the room. She glanced at the clock hand that had just reached "2", and grimaced. Andy would not appreciate it if she were to wake her up trying to slip into her bed at this hour.

She shrugged and motioned for Booker to move.  
"It's my room anyways. Move over, squirt."

The smile that illuminated Booker's face almost blinded her. She watched him roll into the mountain of blankets and almost tip over the edge. She settled quickly and laid down a thick pillow between them. She knew she moved a lot when her nightmares kicked in and didn't want to punch the child by mistake.

* * *

Qùynh woke up later that night to the sound of Booker rearranging the blankets to cover her as well. She kept her eyes closed but still noticed that the bedside lamp had been turned on, spreading a dim light through her eyelids.

She felt a small body curl up into her arms and a head lean against her chest, soft curls tickling her nose.  
"Sleep well miss." came Booker's small whisper. "It's not dark and it's not cold anymore."

Qùynh closed her arms around the small form. He quickly drifted off to the steady sound of her breaths. She fell asleep with a soft smile on her lips.


	3. Nicky

The low creak of the door followed by small footsteps pulled Nicky out of his trance. He blinked awake and shook the pan, releasing delicious whiffs of breakfast through the room. As he turned around, he saw a small figure standing in the door, almost drowning in one of Qùynh's shirts, and large chestnut eyes staring at him.

"Sébastien, you're awake. Are you hungry?"  
Booker shook his head and came to him, rubbing his eyes sleepily.  
"Can I help?"

"Don't worry, I've got it."  
Nicky lifted the little boy onto the counter. He frowned when he felt the hardness of bones. Were children this age supposed to weigh this little? He added more bacon to the pan for good measure.

"I can help, sir. I want to help."  
Eyes focused on the frying pan, the boy was twisting his hands in his shirt. Nicky laughed and ruffled his brown locks.

"It's fine. I'm used to preparing breakfast on my own."  
Well, Booker used to help him more often than not, but it was hardly something he could tell the child as he was now.

To Nicky's surprise, Booker grew more and more restless as time passed. His eyes kept moving from the plates to be laid down on the table to the containers of food that Nicky kept filling up, as if he counted down what was left to do.

Nicky suddenly remembered that just like him, Booker had been raised at the seminary. Himself, as the youngest son of a noble family, and Booker, as an orphan abandoned there at birth. Even after centuries, the shrill voice of the abbott rang in his head. "On this sinful Earth, you must earn your bread daily. Work and then eat. Not the other way around."

So he installed Booker at the coffee table with a stack of crepes, a butter knife, and the insane amount of spreads Andy liked to stuff hers with. Booker got to work with a childish enthusiasm.

When Andy entered the kitchen, lured by the smell of breakfast, the two of them and the coffee table were covered in an unidentified mixture of spreads. Booker was sitting in Nicky's lap, eating a bite of each of the crepes he was preparing.  
"Quality control." Nicky claimed, making it a point to get Booker to taste each and every one of the spreads.

She sat at the dinner table, finding a stack of crepes waiting for her. The first one had that perfect combination of greek cheese, tarama, honey, fig jam, and lime that aside from her, only Booker knew how to prepare. The next ones tasted even better.


	4. Nile

Nile chuckled at the sight of little Booker crouched in front of the washing machine, mesmerized by the clothes rolling inside. His head made little circles, and his hands held a bucket of clothespins. He hadn't noticed her.

"So that's where my pants were gone."  
He startled at Nile's voice, looking up at her timidly.  
"I'm sorry?" he whimpered, curling into a little ball.

Nile sat on the ground next to him and mustered all of the French she knew. Which was not a lot. It was certainly not grammatically correct, but she could still communicate basic ideas.  
"It's ok."

Minutes passed and neither moved. Seeing as she wasn't going to do anything, the little bundle of nerves uncurled slowly.

They kept watching the washing machine's window in silence.

At one point, Nile heard a small ruffle of clothes and… was Booker slightly closer to her now? He kept staring at the machine with an adorable pout, so she didn't act. Then there was another ruffle, and another one. Eventually, he was pressed against her side, a little bundle of warmth resting against her.

She pulled him into her lap, ruffling his hair. He gave a delighted noise, soaking in the affection. Then, she carded her fingers through the thin hair and a blissful smile appeared on his face. Booker looked like a kitten, a touch-starved kitten. Way too cute to not cuddle with.

"Sebastian?"  
"Hmm?"  
It sounded like a purr.  
"You remember me? From before?"  
He lifted his head, watching her with hesitant eyes, his blissful smile lost.

So he did remember. But how much?

He turned around and hugged her, hiding his face in her shirt.  
"You were nice to me. You took me with you. Thank you, miss Nile."

His voice was muffled, and Nile couldn't help but caress the soft brown curls, remembering that moment in Merrick's lab. _"No man left behind."_ she had said, despite Joe's protests.  
"Did I do something wrong? Mister Joe was angry. He was yelling. And I was very sad."

Nile hugged the small body, trying to convey reassurances in her basic French.  
"Joe is not angry anymore. He is nice now. So you be good, ok?"  
Booker nodded and relaxed in her hold.

After a while, he cooed curiously. One of her braids was tickling his nose. He took hold of it and started playing with it with a keen interest.

"You want some too?"  
He nodded so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.

At the end of the washing cycle, Booker's hair was full of little braids, in a reproduction of Nile's hairstyle. He kept giggling and touching his head throughout the entire time they hung out the washing.

They left the laundry room, and Nile could see her little charge hesitating to part ways. Seeing the little boy follow her as she walked down the corridor, like a duckling after his mother, she thought of the painful training session Andy had planned for her. It took her a second to weigh her options. She pointed at her braids.  
"We make those on Nicky?"

The boy squeaked in joy and ran into her open arms.  
Nile grinned. Surely Andy would understand, right?


	5. Joe

"What do you mean you can't break it?"  
Copley's sigh was clearly audible on the other side of the line.  
Joe gritted his teeth. His pacing hastened, heels digging into the wooden floor in heavier thuds.

"As I said, Smith, Kozak's systems were state-of-the-art. The encryption on her data is not something I alone can break. I may have advanced knowledge in computer science, but that doesn't mean I'm a cryptography expert! I'll need time. A lot of it. Of course, it would be quicker if Qùynh hadn't killed her in the first place."

Joe's growl brought Copley's tirade to a halt, menacing even through the phone.  
"She got what she deserved. And even then, it was not enough. Don't you even dare suggest the contrary. Now you'd better get results quickly, or else…"

The threatening words died down in Joe's throat as he walked past the sofa and discovered a terrified Booker hiding behind it. The boy looked at him with wide, scared eyes, both hands pressed against his mouth. A corner of Joe's mind noted that he was wearing… African braids? When he reached out to the child, Booker's eyes screwed shut.

Ignoring the alarms blaring in his mind, Joe dropped the call.

"Hey."  
Booker opened his eyes hesitantly at Joe's calmer tone.  
"I'm sorry Sébastien. I didn't mean to scare you."

The child looked at him for a long moment.  
"Did I do something bad?"

"Of course not little one. It wasn't you I was angry at. It's never you."

The child gave him a doubtful look. He hesitated for a moment and said, in an almost inaudible voice.  
"You said I'm a traitor. And that you'd leave me alone. And I was scared. "  
Tears welled in those chestnut eyes, and Joe's heart winced in pain.  
"I don't want to be alone. I won't be bad again. Please don't leave me. I don't know where to go."

Joe's heart broke. The boy was confusing the dreams of his adult life with the reality. Taken out of context, that scene in Merrick's lab would be terrifying in the eyes of a child. With a frown, Joe realized that that scene would have been terrifying even in the eyes of an adult whose biggest fear was loneliness. Who feared it to the point where he wanted to die to escape it.

A small sniffle brought Joe back to reality. He saw Booker's shoulders shake as he bravely attempted to contain his sobs. Joe panicked. What was he supposed to do with a child in that state? He took a deep breath and extended a hand towards him.

"I won't leave you alone. I'm sorry I frightened you. Can you come out for me?"  
Joe stayed there until his arm hurt. Booker sniffled a while more, but eventually took his hand.

A few minutes later, Booker was on the couch with Joe squatting on the ground to keep them as the same eye level. An empty mug of warm milk was discarded on the coffee table. Booker was hooking his fingers into his clothes in what looked like painful twists.

Joe gently unhooked the little fingers, prying them open one by one, and held the small hands in his own.

"Sébastien, look at me."  
Joe's voice was measured, quiet, and calm, in total contradiction with his state of mind. Shy chestnut orbs appeared behind the brown braids, glistening too bright.  
"I won't hurt you. No one in this house will. You're safe now. We would die before we let anything happen to you. We love you, sweet child. I promise, we'll find a way to send you back home."

Booker nodded.  
"You're lost too, mister?"  
"Lost?"  
The boy fidgeted, seemingly gathering his courage.  
"I went outside." he whispered, and waited to see Joe's reaction. When he saw that the man was only listening, he relaxed and continued.  
"I couldn't find my way home. It's so weird here. We must be in a far, far away country. So I came back. Are you also lost? Perhaps we can search home together?"  
Joe chuckled and brought the small hands up to his lips.  
"Yes. Let's do that."

He kissed Booker's palms. A sign of allegiance Nicolò had taught him a long time ago.


	6. Andy

"Wow, you're so strong!"  
Booker stared at Andy in awe, excitedly jumping up and down, a wooden dagger in his hand. Andy gave him a severe look and added her staff to the pile of training weapons sitting next to him.  
"Don't jump around with a weapon. Finish cleaning it first."

From her spot flat on the ground, Nile watched Booker resume his cleaning duties with an endearing seriousness. She dragged herself to her feet and left for a shower. Andy had trained Spartan children in the past, and that showed.

"Can I train too?" Booker asked later, waddling towards the weapons rack with an armful of wooden weapons in his arms, as Andy repeated a series of katas long forgotten to the world.

"Why? You're a bit too young for that, aren't you?"  
Despite the exercise, her breathing wasn't the least bit hitched.

Booker hummed pensively as he held a falcata in front of the rack, trying to figure out where it went.  
"But you, and miss Qùynh, and mister Joe, and mister Nicky, and miss Nile are so good at that. I can't keep up. It's scary when we fight."

Andy raised a brow, twisting around to deliver a sharp kick in the air. They hadn't done any fighting with the child version of Booker. Of course they hadn't. That must have been the memory of one of their missions. Probably the escape from Merrick's lab, if it included Nile.

After they had found him two centuries ago, Booker had had a hard time to accommodate to the fighting. Unlike the rest of them, Booker had never received any formal combat training. He'd spent his entire life as a paper pusher —and was one of the best, but he'd been thrust into the battlefield with the bare minimum of explanations on how to wield a bayonet.

Andy had spent countless hours training him to bring him up to par with the team, and she had thought it had been enough. Booker had never been the best fighter, but by now, he far outclassed most of his mortal opponents.

She looked towards the weapons rack, where little Booker was tiptoeing to hang the falcata back up, and a thought crept in her mind. Fighting was a second nature to her. Just like the others, it was the main thing they excelled at. But what of Booker, who was a scholar at heart?

The falcata escaped the child's grip. Booker fell flat on his bottom, dropping the other weapons he was carrying in a loud clatter of wood. He cried out briefly, but caught himself and gave her a small glance before standing back up and resuming his task, grabbing a broadsword that was much too big for him to handle. 

They had always called Booker the baby of the team. Now that she had the visual to match, Andy wondered how she had let him take to the battlefield before.

"Would it be better if you were more at a distance? You'd still be with us, but not in the middle of the action."  
Seeing as she wasn't upset, Booker visibly relaxed and turned towards her. Confusion was etched on his small features.  
"I don't understand. Can you teach me?"

Andy nodded and Booker ran to her with a childish glee. They spent the afternoon discussing the basics of ballistics. As expected, Booker soaked in the knowledge like a dry sponge.


	7. Copley

"Look look mister James, it worked! And it's untraceable too!"

"Good job champ!"  
Copley patted Booker's back and watched as the data he had secured on a test server was steadily being downloaded onto Booker's training laptop.

Booker giggled and resumed his furious typing, his legs kicking happily under Copley's desk chair.  
"I'm sure I can make it faster too. Wait and see!"

Copley walked to the sofa from where Joe was watching them like a hawk. The immortals were still distrustful of him. They were especially on guard since Booker had started taking computer science lessons from him. 

"He learns tremendously fast." he said, to ease the tension Joe's presence would inevitably bring to the lessons.

"Any updates on Kozak's files?"  
Joe was as curt as always.

"None so far. But I looked into the other documents you brought back. It paints an incomplete picture, but it seems like this… condition will be temporary. She is referring to past experiments. The subjects all revert back eventually..."

"What are you not telling me?"

"I'm not certain, but in all logic, the reversion process should put a lot of strain on the body. The further back they go, the worse it gets."  
They both looked at Booker, and at how small he was. Growing back up to his adult self would consume more energy than his body could contain.

Joe was about to say something but Copley nodded, cutting him off.  
"I know. The details are in that encrypted drive. I'm still working on it."

Before they could add anything, a laptop screen was thrust into their faces.  
"Look, it's even faster now!"

Joe looked at the terminal window, full of commands and logs that didn't help much in his understanding of Booker's program. But Copley's smile was all he needed to know that Booker had done well once again. He rose up, lifting the child in his arms as he made to leave.  
"You're getting better every time, Basti. Now's time to go. Let's leave Copley to his work, right?"

There was a lot to prepare for Booker's reversion. IVs with nutritional pouches to start with.

As they passed the door, Booker waved enthusiastically at Copley.  
"Bye mister James! Can we come back soon?"

Joe settled the boy on his hip.  
"Hm? Why so? You can train as well at home."

Booker shook his head and struggled a bit in his hold, until Joe put him back down.  
"That way, mister James will be less lonely?"

In the troubled silence that followed that announcement, Booker trotted up to where Copley was still sitting on the sofa.  
"Would you like that? If we come more often?"

Joe felt a lump in his throat. Right there, just above Booker's head, he could see the many pictures of Copley's late wife decorating the mantlepiece. The wife whose memory he had used as a motivation to sell them to Merrick.

"Because when you're lonely, you can do many bad things."  
Booker's voice was small, and regretful, and Joe remembered that Booker too, had betrayed his fellow immortals out of loneliness.

He watched as the two kindred souls hugged for long minutes.

Joe sighed and plopped back down onto the sofa, grabbing his cup.  
"Go back to your programming Basti. I haven't finished my coffee. We'll be there for quite a while."

The relief was unmistakable on both faces.

And then, Booker screamed in pain.


	8. Together

"Sébastien! Where are you? How are you doing?"  
Qùynh barged into Copley's house, pushing Joe aside on her way to Booker's prone form on the sofa. Andy, more reserved, stopped by Joe and Copley, still keeping an eye on the unconscious child.

"Andy, he's already so big!"  
Qùynh's voice brought everyone around the child. Indeed, he looked more like a pre-teen than a child at this point. She was in the process of undressing him so that he wouldn't suffocate in clothing that was quickly growing too tight.

Booker was suffering. His brow covered in sweat, he breathed heavily and whined weakly.  
"He has a fever."  
Copley acquiesced.  
"That is to be expected. Growing up suddenly is bound to strain his body quite a lot. If he wasn't immortal, he wouldn't stand a chance at survival."

Nicky and Nile arrived at this moment, carrying a crate of medical supplies. The others gave them space to set up the IV.

It took fifteen hours for Booker's body to stabilize to the biological time of his first death. Fifteen long hours during which they had been busy trying to alleviate the pain Booker seemed to be in. But there was nothing to be done. The anesthetics wore out in minutes, the IV drip was not providing nutrients fast enough. Despite their best efforts, Booker died twice.

When he eventually woke up, he looked like he had just escaped from Merrick's lab once again.  
They were all there, crowded around him as he slowly sat up, looking a gaunt, lost, and very exhausted. The bubbly child was gone, and the old sarcastic, fatalist Booker was back. He looked around, haunted chestnut eyes blurred by the phantom pain coursing through his limbs.

Without a word, he slowly stood up, almost tipping over when his left knee almost gave out under him. He put on the pants and shirt Nile had left on the coffee table, and painfully made his way out of the room.

"Book!"  
Qùynh jumped at him and held him tight against her, handing him a juice box as if he was still a little child.  
"Nice to meet the grown up you. Have some juice? It's your favourite!"

Booker's eyes glinted with the tiniest speck of want that she had learnt to detect in his child self, before he averted his gaze and gently pushed her away.  
"I'll be fine, thanks."

"Where are you going Sébastien?"  
Andy's voice seeped with authority. As always, Booker felt compelled to answer.  
"It's only been six months. Sorry for the bother. I'll… I'll be on my way. I'll be more careful this time."

Qùynh expression morphed into one of calm fury. Booker shrunk onto himself, expecting a lashing. Instead, she turned towards the others.  
"He's staying. You don't get a say in it. Whatever he's done, he has always been there for me. He never left me alone when I was down there. And even as a baby he made sure I wouldn't sleep alone. I won't be leaving him! He's a baby. He's our baby. And you don't leave babies alone, especially when they do stupid things!"

"Qùynh…" Booker's eyes were wide open. He hadn't expected that.

Images of the past days flashed through the immortals' minds.

_'I want to help.'_  
Nicky bit his lips as he saw Booker hungrily eyeing the frying pan.

_'You took me with you. Thank you.'_  
Nile felt the little boy almost purr in her lap as she braided his hair, hungry for any kind of touch.

_'Please don't leave me. I don't know where to go.'_  
Joe was reminded of his oath. The oath that he wouldn't hurt Booker again.

_'Can you teach me?'_  
Andy remembered the boy's eagerness to please, and the second chance she had given him. Could she give the same one to the adult Booker?

Copley's voice broke the silence.  
"You can stay at my place if you want. We'll keep each other company."  
Booker looked at the man as if he had suddenly grown a second head.

"No."  
Andy's voice carried a tone of finality, and Booker felt his heart sink for a second.

"We'll all stay here. Your sentence is commuted. You're not leaving our watch Sébastien. Ninety nine years and six months. You'd better be prepared. You too Copley."

Booker was still confused when she came to hug him. In a daze, he didn't catch any of Qùynh's babbles as she happily jumped onto his back while Nicky and Joe pressed into his sides, whispering excuses. He saw Nile push Copley into the group hug before joining in herself.

Tears welled in his eyes. There was a lot of work to be done before they could reach the same level of trust again. A lot to atone for and even more to discover.

But for the first time in decades, he saw the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
> Thanks for following this story up until the end.


End file.
